It's really hard to describe Meow Wolf. I tried Googling to see if there was any advertising blurb that could help, the best I could find was "Unique & immersive art installations with multimedia elements & a mysterious narrative throughout".
You arrive at a old bowling alley in an industrial estate. I read somewhere that the building is actually owned by Game of Thrones author George R. R. Martin who brought and renovated the building for Meow Wolf to use. Once you have your ticket, you start the tour by going into a room where it appears you have been transported to the outside of a large country house. There is a letter in the postbox that explains something strange has happened to the family of this house. As you go inside, the house looks relatively normal apart from the odd strange thing. The more you investigate, the more stranger and stranger things you find. You can touch, read and use anything in the house. This includes the newspaper which gives you a little more information on what happened, school reports, letters, books, even go through the clothes in each of the drawers. There are people in lab coats around the house who put things back if they're moved too out of place so the experience is not ruined for the people behind you. The more you explore, the more secret passages you start to find (walking through the fridge, crawling through the fireplace or sliding down the washing machine were some of our favourites) which take you to a travelling machine that goes to different worlds.
We soon forgot about the story and ended up just having a lot of fun in what is essentially, an LSD-themed jungle gym for adults and of course for kids.
Half way through, we needed a drink so we headed back out into the ticket area where there was a funky cafe and bar with unusual flavoured drinks covered in bright glitter and sugared hearts. This gave us the energy boost needed to continue.
We ended up spending just over 3 hours in Meow Wolf but we could have easily stayed all day! So much fun, something really different and with over 60 local artists included in its making and its upkeep, something good for the local community.
After Meow Wolf, we headed to the Santa Fe Plaza. There was a huge 4th July party going on, the roads were shut off, a market was on, there was live music and a lot of people! We walked around the plaza and enjoyed looking at the adobe buildings and taking in the 4th July atmosphere.
Santa Fe is the state capitol of New Mexico and no visit would be complete without a trip to the State Capitol Building. It actually took us a lot longer to find than we expected, we were looking for a similar grand building with a huge dome that we had seen in Austin. The New Mexico Capitol Building was a lot smaller, more modern and more cylindrical.
The art collection in the State Capitol Building was impressive, its more of an art gallery than an office building. Our favourite was a buffalo head made out of rubbish.
It was interesting to compare this building with the Texas State Capitol building in Austin. Austin had a feeling of grandeur and was keen to show off the architecture of the building and the history of the contents where as New Mexico was less about the building and more about showcasing the art inside, most of which appeared to come from local artists.
We spent most of the day in Santa Fe before it was time to head back to ABQ for the 4th July celebrations.
The art collection in the State Capitol Building was impressive, its more of an art gallery than an office building. Our favourite was a buffalo head made out of rubbish.
It was interesting to compare this building with the Texas State Capitol building in Austin. Austin had a feeling of grandeur and was keen to show off the architecture of the building and the history of the contents where as New Mexico was less about the building and more about showcasing the art inside, most of which appeared to come from local artists.
We spent most of the day in Santa Fe before it was time to head back to ABQ for the 4th July celebrations.
The soundtrack for Meow Wolf was very apt, what a quirky and weird place but did look fun.
ReplyDeleteSanta Fe looked nice, I like the adobe buildings and I thought the Capitol Building was pretty cool actually, but as you say, very understated.
You had fun at Meow Wolf can see how you young people would enjoy something like that but think not for us oldies neither Dad or I would have been brave enough to go down washing machine and probably would have come out of there a bit boss eyed :-). XX.
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